Also try...

More about the hidden emoticons

When MSN Messenger 6 was released in 2003, it added custom MSN Emoticons and featured many new emoticons and smileys. In this emoticon update, a slew of brand new hidden emoticons was added into MSN Messenger, many of them animated.

Not all of these emoticons are still considered to be hidden. As new versions of Messenger have been released, many of them have become available in the emoticon menu (particularly in version 7). Currently, the cigarette, handcuff and xbox emoticons remain hidden in Live Messenger 9.

Recently added emoticons

Here's a little story about how some new hidden emoticons were added to MSN/Live Messenger recently.

Each year, Microsoft holds a charity auction among it's employees and the person (or group) offering to donate the most money will decide the next emoticon to be added to Messenger.

With the release of MSN Messenger 7, the Hotmail team won the auction and (for some unknown reason, possibly an inside joke) chose to add a goat emoticon to Messenger.

When the Windows Live Messenger 8.5 BETA was released, an employee named Andrew won the auction and decided to add a bunny emoticon in honor of his beloved daughter, Natasha.

We're not sure if Microsoft will continue this trend, no new emoticons have been announced for Windows Live Messenger 9. One thing is for certain, Messenger emoticons feature more animals than any other IM client.